As they say in the bike touring realm: “There are good days and there are headwinds…”

I write to you this morning from a hostel in Valdivia, Chile where we just spent a night. They have “cabanas” here that are like low-budget hotel rooms with cooking facilities. For 12 USD a piece, we had a safe room with 4 beds, shower, TV(?!?!?!), etc. 3rd or 4th time seeing a TV since being in country.

Speaking of in country, we have been here over 3 weeks now. We have over 700 miles on our legs (and a bus ride from Chillan to Temuco). In the time since our last post, much chaos has ensued. Anthony has fulfilled his duty of wandering away and is now a temporary resident of Valparaiso, Chile. I won’t take the pleasure of sharing the ridiculous story of his time since he left us but hopefully he’ll fill you in on his blog, Anthonywanderedaway. His aching achilles has prevented him from continuing with us, so he’s taken up an artist’s residency in Valpo, hoping to document the incredible wealth of street art in that beautiful city.

As for us, we took in a Chilean pentacostal service, consequently turned down a meal and a roof from said pentecostals and opted to spend a night in a gas station’s trucker lounge (read: poorly lit hidden room filled with Chilean hippies), took a bus from Chillan to Temuco (I have an impressive picture of our bikes disassembled and jammed in the cargo bay, somehow they made it out alive), ridden a few short days along the coast to Valdivia, and now we’re about to take off for the island of Chiloe. Once in Chiloe, we’re (I believe) officially in Patagonia and from there we’ll be on to the Carreterra Austral, which is the heart of why we came down here. It is a mecca for bicycle tourists worldwide. We’ll spend 600+ miles on it before eventually crossing into Argentina via Chile Chico and then heading south toward Ushuaia. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to post along the way, and we’ll do our best to get more pictures up as time and facilities permit.